Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Audio Slide Show - Fa'afafine: A Third Gender in Samoa
Fa' afafine: "© Copyright 2007, The Anchorage Daily News, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company"
Cultural contradictions
Tafi Toleafoa explains what it means to be fa'afafine
 Tafi Toleafoa answers questions after her presentation on fa'afafine at the Anchorage Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on a recent Sunday in West Anchorage. Her talk was titled "What Do I Call You? What Are You? Gender and Sexual Identity at American Universities." ( ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News)  After arguing both sides of a U. S. Supreme Court case before their constitutional law class, Melody Allen, left, Lacy Jensen, Tafi Toleafoa and Denny Hickerson review their performances while waiting in the hallway for classmates to judge their presentations at UAA. (ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News)  Tafi Toleafoa, left, and her closest friend, Maggie Mau, tend to Tafi's sleepy niece Leileanah Toleafoa, 1, at her first birthday celebration in midtown on June 15, 2007. (ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News)  Tafi Toleafoa and classmates cast votes after listening to teams argue both sides of a U. S. Supreme Court case in constitutional law class on a Wednesday evening in June at UAA. Tafi will be the first in her family to earn a college degree. (ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News)  Tafi Toleafoa tends niece Leileanah Toleafoa, 1, during a family gathering after church on a Saturday afternoon in June in west Anchorage. Fa'afafine typically take on traditionally female duties in Samoan culture. (ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News)  Tafi Toleafoa helps mom Ropeta Toleafoa and family serve food to guests at a first birthday celebration for niece Leileanna Toleafoa June 15, 2007, in south Anchorage. Fa'afafine typically do women's work in Samoan culture, in this case packaging and serving meals to family members and friends from church. (ERIK HILL / Anchorage Daily News) |
By JULIA O'MALLEY
jomalley@adn.com
(Published: August 19, 2007)
"What are you?" The question came at Tafi Toleafoa from a young woman across the computer lab. People always want to know, but they rarely ask out loud. Students wear the question on their faces the first day of class. Professors trip over pronouns. It's been that way since Tafi came from Samoa two years ago to attend the University of Alaska Anchorage. "Are you a boy or a girl?" Now, one more time, Tafi had to explain, to untangle the contradiction of her long thick hair and plump, glossy lips with the masculine tenor of her voice and her tall, substantial body. She had to tell the girl that, no, she isn't a boy, or a girl, exactly. She's something else. "I'm fa'afafine," Tafi said. "That means I have a boy's body, but I was raised in Samoa as a girl." Tafi could have explained that in the islands, nobody ever asked. She could have told the girl that a Samoan mother with a fa'afafine among her children is considered lucky. Fa'afafine help with babies and cooking, they tend the elderly and the sick. They are presumed to have the best traits of both men and women. But the girl didn't want to know more. She picked up her things and left, giving Tafi one last look over her shoulder. The way most Americans understand it, gender breaks down simply: there are men and there are women. But across Asia and the Pacific Islands, many cultures recognize a third gender with characteristics both male and female. In Samoa, when a son or a daughter prefers the work and clothes of the opposite sex, they are called fa'afafine "like a woman" or, far less commonly, fa'atama, "like a man." Tafi has a male body, but she lives her life as a female and asks that people refer to her as "she." That's how she will be described in this story. In the islands Tafi was more accepted, but her life was still complicated. Many fa'afafine live as women, the maleness of their bodies ignored by those around them. Outside of the cities, especially in Christian families, they must follow strict social rules binding them to household duties. Many families, including Tafi's, expect they will remain celibate. In a culture that prizes both its tradition and Christianity, fa'afafine are tolerated, but behavior that hints at homosexuality is not. Still, many fa'afafine, who see themselves as women, do have discreet relationships with men. In her ideal world, Tafi, who was raised as an oldest girl-child named Alicia, wouldn't have to change her body to be accepted here. She wouldn't have to rearrange her outside to make people accept what she is inside: a straight woman who is attracted to straight men. But the world isn't ideal. Since she came to Anchorage, Tafi's family, who loves her as she is, has pressured her to dress like a man. They have decided she needs to fit in to avoid ugliness she isn't used to. Now, at 23, she's torn between the expectations of her family who accept her as an asexual helper, and American culture that's less accepting but offers her what she wants most: a chance to become physically female, to find a husband and have a family of her own. Tafi wasn't surprised that the girl in the computer lab didn't know what she was seeing. Sometimes Tafi doesn't know how to see herself -- or her future.
ALICIA
Ropeta Toleafoa knew her son was fa'afafine at age 4. Unlike his brothers, he stayed close to her and didn't like getting dirty, she said, speaking in Samoan with her son Taivaleoaana "Seven" Toleafoa translating. "He didn't like going outside and doing what men do," she said. Tafi's life wasn't like the stories she watched on re-runs of American talk shows as she grew up in Samoa. She never felt she was a woman trapped in a man's body. She never felt shame. Samoa is a tribal, communal society, different from America where individual desires rule. Samoan parents hold a powerful role and commonly influence their children's decisions far into adulthood. Children don't choose to be fa'afafine; their mothers decide for them. At 5, Tafi, a sweet, outspoken child, began hoisting babies on her hip, filling bottles for her mother and helping with the dishes. Ropeta, a mother of eight, was pregnant or nursing for many years and welcomed Tafi's help. Tafi wasn't encouraged to dress like a girl, but she gravitated toward her sisters' clothing, playing dress-up in private. "I loved skirts, short skirts to be specific," she said. "I always had to be pretty." At school, Tafi bonded with girls and other fa'afafine among her classmates and teachers. By third grade, most everyone called her Alicia. Her younger siblings, all girls, saw her as an oldest sister. Tafi's father, Saunoa "Noah" Toleafoa is a religious man, an elder in the Seventh Day Adventist church that missionaries brought to the islands along with Western ideas about gender. Noah had fa'afafine in his family, but he held on longest to the idea that Tafi would be like her older brothers. A boy dressing as a girl is not what God intended, he said. He tried forcing her to change her clothes and cut her hair like a boy's, but nothing worked. Tafi couldn't be forced. "This one thing I know," he said. "Tafi is different." By the time Tafi reached her teens, the idea of an actual sex change consumed her. Tafi found many examples of adult fa'afafine around her, some of whom had surgery. To each other they spoke a fa'afafine language, a mixture of English and Samoan. Tafi soon caught on. "It wasn't hard to ask them, 'Hey, how did you get boobs?'" she said. Out of respect for her father, Tafi dressed "androgenous," wearing women's pants, a T-shirt, and her long hair pulled into a bun. Her one indulgence was glitter. "Lots of glitter," she said. "I loved shiny stuff." Ropeta and her daughters insulated Tafi from her father's disapproval, which gradually waned. For junior prom, Ropeta saved two paychecks to buy Tafi the material to make a pink dress. By 2002, all the Toleafoas had immigrated to Anchorage, following family connections and the promise of better jobs. Tafi stayed behind, her immigration status complicated because she was born in western Samoa, which is an independent country, different from the U.S. territory of American Samoa. She'd graduated from high school and was working on her associates degree. "That's when I started dressing like a woman full-out," she said. In a snap-shot from that period posted on her MySpace.com site, Tafi glows, her chest full under a black blouse. "It felt right," she said. "Perfect."
AMERICA
In 2005, on her way to Anchorage to start at UAA, Tafi took her first step on U.S. soil in Hawaii, wearing platform sandals and short-shorts. She always imagined Americans, with their gay celebrities and liberal attitudes, would accept her. She remembered RuPaul and the movie "To Wong Fu, Thanks for Everything!" a drag queen comedy she'd watched in high school. "I thought, 'OK if there's people like that, then probably I don't have to explain myself,' " she said. "I didn't know that it was going to be like there's nobody that dresses like that in a real everyday life." When she showed her passport, which said she was a man, customs officials singled her out for two special searches. Standing in the balmy Honolulu airport, she felt the disapproval of strangers for the first time. The collapse of her expectations continued in Anchorage. The first day of her liberal studies class, when she answered a professor's question, she heard whispers. Her voice betrayed her. "When they look at your face and you have earrings on and you have make-up on and you have long hair, then automatically you're supposed to have this kind of voice," she said. "If you are not going to have that voice, then you are kind of like an alien or something." After her first two weeks of school, her father sat Tafi down. He had four fa'afafine on his mother's side, he said. One of them came to America 10 years ago, to California. People didn't understand her there, he said. At a party, Americans beat her and threw her from a window. She was killed. "He said he's concerned about my life and my safety," Tafi said. "That's why he advised me that I should change my style to kind of like, umm, androgenous, sort of like professional." There would be no more short-shorts or glitter. Instead, it was T-shirts, and slacks. And if her professor asked about pronouns, she'd go by "he." But, even in her toned-down outfits, Tafi seemed feminine. Her professors struggled with what to call her in class. "Even the most inclusive people do not know what this is," said her professor Ann Jache. "They don't know how to talk about a person that is both male and female." Tafi took her classmates' judgment as a challenge. A gregarious "he," she excelled in class, tackling complicated literature, winning a seat on the student senate, making a loyal group of friends in the school Polynesian association. Tafi didn't want to hide, Jache said, she wanted to explain. Jache and Tafi crafted a project on fa'afafine over the generations. Tafi gave a presentation to her class, and then to the campus, and then to a Unitarian church. Each time, she grew more confident. Tafi began to see it as her job to inform the campus about fa'afafine. "I knew that they are not educated about it. They wouldn't be mean like that if they knew ... Fa'afafine are all coming to Alaska," she said. "If they are running into the same problems, I have to do something about it."
LOVE. . . .
Meet the first transgender panda
(...well, not really. But still a cute story and panda photo. R.A.)
Associated Press
It’s not very often that I get to report on good news to my faithful readers, so this week is something special. I just received a news that an endangered panda named “Jinzhu” has given birth to two healthy cubs. What makes this story so remarkable, though, is that Jinzhu was originally believed to be a male panda!
To my knowledge, Jinzhu is the world’s first and only transgender panda or “pandsgender.” (”Tranda” would be an acceptable term as well.)
But no matter how joyous the news is, Jinzhu’s identity crisis is a failure of panda management. Panda expert Li Deshen, however, believes that Jinzhu gender mix up can be attributed to the fact that “The penis of an adult panda is only 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) long.” 1.2 inches long?! That means my penis is almost three times longer than the average Panda’s. Almost.
I have developed a cheat sheet for zoologists to use in determining if their beloved panda is really a tranda:
- Has changed name from Wu Xan to “Chris” or “Dale”
- Life story is being made into a movie starring Hillary Swank
- Refers to gender as a “spectrum” or a “construct”
- Has started attending Sarah Lawrence college
Jinzhu’s plight raises the troubling prospect that there may be more pandsgenders out there who need our help. Can you imagine how hard it must be to be both endangered and transgender? Those pandas must be beaten up in high school nearly every day. And its up to us to save these Trandas, because our current administration certainly won’t: I can’t think of anything a Republican would hate more than an animal that is both endangered and transgender. Maybe if it were a welfare recipient, too. But that’s ridiculous. Pandas can’t be welfare recipients.
Criticism of a Gender Theory, and a Scientist Under Siege
In academic feuds, as in war, there is no telling how far people will go once the shooting starts.
Skip to next paragraph 
Sally Ryan for The New York Times
J. Michael Bailey’s book about gender enraged some transgender women.
Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times
Alice Dreger, an ethics scholar, investigated the accusations against Dr. Bailey.
Roosevelt University
Deirdre McCloskey called opposition to Dr. Bailey’s theory “fair comment.”
Earlier this month, members of the International Academy of Sex Research, gathering for their annual meeting in Vancouver, informally discussed one of the most contentious and personal social science controversies in recent memory.
The central figure, J. Michael Bailey, a psychologist at Northwestern University, has promoted a theory that his critics think is inaccurate, insulting and potentially damaging to transgender women. In the past few years, several prominent academics who are transgender have made a series of accusations against the psychologist, including that he committed ethics violations. A transgender woman he wrote about has accused him of a sexual impropriety, and Dr. Bailey has become a reviled figure for some in the gay and transgender communities.To many of Dr. Bailey’s peers, his story is a morality play about the corrosive effects of political correctness on academic freedom. Some scientists say that it has become increasingly treacherous to discuss politically sensitive issues. They point to several recent cases, like that of Helmuth Nyborg, a Danish researcher who was fired in 2006 after he caused a furor in the press by reporting a slight difference in average I.Q. test scores between the sexes.
“What happened to Bailey is important, because the harassment was so extraordinarily bad and because it could happen to any researcher in the field,” said Alice Dreger, an ethics scholar and patients’ rights advocate at Northwestern who, after conducting a lengthy investigation of Dr. Bailey’s actions, has concluded that he is essentially blameless. “If we’re going to have research at all, then we’re going to have people saying unpopular things, and if this is what happens to them, then we’ve got problems not only for science but free expression itself.”
To Dr. Bailey’s critics, his story is a different kind of morality tale.
“Nothing we have done, I believe, and certainly nothing I have done, overstepped any boundaries of fair comment on a book and an author who stepped into the public arena with enthusiasm to deliver a false and unscientific and politically damaging opinion,” Deirdre McCloskey, a professor of economics, history, English, and communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and one of Dr. Bailey’s principal critics, said in an e-mail message.
The hostilities began in the spring of 2003, when Dr. Bailey published a book, “The Man Who Would Be Queen,” intended to explain the biology of sexual orientation and gender to a general audience.
“The next two years,” Dr. Bailey said in an interview, “were the hardest of my life.”
Many sex researchers who have worked with Dr. Bailey say that he is a solid scientist and collaborator, who by his own admission enjoys violating intellectual taboos.
In his book, he argued that some people born male who want to cross genders are driven primarily by an erotic fascination with themselves as women. This idea runs counter to the belief, held by many men who decide to live as women, that they are the victims of a biological mistake — in essence, women trapped in men’s bodies. Dr. Bailey described the alternate theory, which is based on Canadian studies done in the 1980s and 1990s, in part by telling the stories of several transgender women he met through a mutual acquaintance. In the book, he gave them pseudonyms, like “Alma” and “Juanita.”
Other scientists praised the book as a compelling explanation of the science. The Lambda Literary Foundation, an organization that promotes gay, bisexual and transgender literature, nominated the book for an award.
But days after the book appeared, Lynn Conway, a prominent computer scientist at the University of Michigan, sent out an e-mail message comparing Dr. Bailey’s views to Nazi propaganda. She and other transgender women found the tone of the book abusive, and the theory of motivation it presented to be a recipe for further discrimination. . . .
Monday, August 20, 2007
UK: Nothing like a Dame
At 68, Diana Rigg is shunning ‘crusty classics’ to star in a racy, gender-bending comedy
From
August 18, 2007
Exploring the mystery of human genitals with Dame Diana Rigg is like being privy to Miss Marple’s case-notes on sex. “I’ve learnt so much,” marvels Rigg in that gloriously fruity voice. “I had no idea there was such a big trade in men . . . MEN,” she booms, “who grow bosoms, and keep their penises.” Her eyebrows arch in wonder. There is a polite pause as we think of men with large breasts in Kevin Spacey’s cramped office at the Old Vic, where she will appear in an adaptation of Pedro Almod�var’s film All About My Mother. “I vaguely assumed people were born hermaphrodite,” muses Rigg. She reaches a freckled hand into a lumpy bag and fishes out a packet of cigarettes. “I didn’t know they deliberately chose to be like that,” she shrugs, sinking into Kevin’s casting couch in a puff of blue smoke.
It is, of course, strictly forbidden to spark up in any theatre unless you’re very, very grand.
“Ah, the wine. Thank God,” trumpets Dame D, as a cold bottle of pinot grigio makes a welcome landing on the Perspex table in front of us. The venerable aristocrat has just finished a draining rehearsal, and she’s in surprisingly jolly form. I was expecting Rigg in full armour. But age has defrosted the famous froideur, and time has softened her face. I barely recognise the glacial actress I interviewed 14 years ago for her terrifying turn as Medea. In fact I barely recognise her at all. The neat bob of hair has been dyed a fashionable shade of EastEnders blonde. The baggy jumper, jeans, and scuffed trainers are perfect uniform for the launderette.
Rigg’s crash course in gender-bending is the fault of Almod�var. She has cornered a terrific part in an adaptation of his 1999 Oscar-winning hit. She plays Huma Rojo, a Spanish diva at the crumbly end of a forgotten career who is infatuated with a young female co-star in a creaky touring production of A Street-car Named Desire.
“Oh, I can’t tell you the sheer joy of being able to play Blanche Dubois at my age,” purrs Rigg. “A little late perhaps . . . but better than never.”
The diva befriends a devastated mother whose teenage son is flattened by a lorry after watching the actress perform on stage. The play is obsessed with the many different ways women tend to mother one another through good times and bad.
“That’s why the title is so appropriate,” Rigg says. “ All About My Mother is a kaleidoscope of women, whatever form they decide to take. If it happens to be a ‘fella’ who decides he’s a woman – even though he’s got a penis – so be it. The play is about acceptance. It’s about outsiders.” Does Rigg regard herself as an outsider? “Oh yeah. Very much so. I don’t mean to be, but I am. I was born an outsider.”
Spending her formative years in India might have had something to do with it. Rigg was actually born in Doncaster in 1938, the daughter of an engineer, Louis, who answered an advert in The Times in 1925 for railway engineers to work in India. His wife made a brief sojourn back to England for the birth. When Rigg was shipped back to gloomy Yorkshire and boarding school in 1945, she felt like a fish out of water. But by 1959 she was an aspiring actress at the RSC, and then a leading member of Olivier’s National Theatre company at the Old Vic.
Rigg’s beauty put her beyond the reach of mere mortals. She was theatrical Viagra for critics who recall her taking her clothes off in Abelard and H�loïse, and Tom Stoppard’s Jumpers. Most of her tabloid fans remember her as Emma Peel in that classic series, The Avengers. Once a week, her alter ego reduced grown men to dribbling schoolboys. Her karate chops and spray-on catsuit were a lethal mix.
“That stuff is still around,” she sighs. “It’s all over the place on the internet. Apparently I’m used as a screensaver. I’m also a mouse pad. How low can one get? You are looking at a mouse pad,” she splutters. . . .
Brazil to provide free sex-change operations
The Associated Press
Updated: 4:47 p.m. ET Aug 17, 2007
RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil - Brazil’s public health system will begin providing free sex-change operations in compliance with a court order, the Health Ministry said Friday.
Ministry spokesman Edmilson Oliveira da Silva said the government would not appeal Wednesday’s ruling by a panel of federal judges giving the government 30 days to offer the procedure or face fines of $5,000 a day.
“The health minister was prompted by the judges’ decision,” Silva said. “But we already had a technical group studying the procedure with the idea of including it among the procedures that are covered.”
Federal prosecutors from Rio Grande do Sul state had argued that sexual reassignment surgery is covered under a constitutional clause guaranteeing medical care as a basic right.
On Wednesday the 4th Regional Federal Court agreed, saying in its ruling that “from the biomedical perspective, transsexuality can be described as a sexual identity disturbance where individuals need to change their sexual designation or face serious consequences in their lives, including intense suffering, mutilation and suicide.”
The Health Ministry said it would be up to local health officials to decide who qualifies for the surgery and what priority it will be given compared with other operations within the public health system.
Patients must be at least 21 years old and diagnosed as transsexuals with no other personality disorders and must undergo psychological evaluation for at least two years, the ministry said. . . .
Prisoners of gender
New support helps children unhappy with sexual identity
Friday, August 17, 2007
Fran Henry
Plain Dealer Reporter When words failed her, Deena expressed herself the old-fashioned way -- she screamed and sobbed. She was never so fluent as the morning she graduated to big-girl panties.
As the 3-year-old convulsed with emotion, her mother finally understood.
Deena wanted to wear boy's underwear, not panties. "It was a need," her mother, Carol, said. "She wouldn't have left the house otherwise."
The little girl also refused to wear dresses and get her hair beaded. She wanted a penis like her brothers so she could urinate standing up. She was vehemently disturbed by pictures of herself at 18 months in a dress and braids.
The pieces began to fit. Carol and her husband understood that their now 9-year-old girl identifies as a boy.
They aren't fighting it. Under her brothers' hand-me-down baggy basketball shorts, Deena wears boys' underwear. And she adopts boys' names when it suits her. They enrolled her in a private school when public school was an emotionally decimating experience. "She was sobbing in her bed after school," Carol said. "It's killing us financially, but she's one of the better-liked kids in her classroom."
As Deena and her mom played "horse" at their backyard basketball hoop on a recent sunny day, Deena looked every inch a boy, her shoulders broad and her arms muscular.
Her East Side parents, who've chosen to remain anonymous, are steeling themselves for some hard decisions that will be demanded of them soon.
"We're in a state of calm," Carol said, "but we're expecting complications as puberty hits." Carol got a preview when she had the classic mother-daughter talk about puberty. Deena was repulsed.
If Deena gets her first period "and nosedives into a depression," Carol said she would consider using puberty-blocking medications. This would buy the child time to better understand herself and her future options, including gender reassignment surgery.
No one knows how many children believe they're living in the wrong body -- a condition that the American Psychiatric Association calls Gender Identity Disorder. It is unrelated to sexual preference.
The best guess is that it affects one in 30,000 males and one in 100,000 females, said Dr. Edgar Menvielle of Children's National Medical Center, Washington, D.C. He based his calculation on the number of sex reassignment surgeries in the Netherlands.
People with gender identity issues traditionally lived beneath the radar, forced into silence by prevailing cultural expectations. The genitals defined gender, and gender roles were sharply defined. Deviation from the norm was a punishable offense.
But mass media changed everything. The world became a village in which everyone knew everyone else's business. Deviation from the norm was news fodder, and the entertainment industry worked the angles.
Tom Hanks dressed like a woman in "Bosom Buddies;" Julia Sweeney played the androgynous Pat on "Saturday Night Live;" Dr. Phil plumbed the depths of a man who became a woman; Barbara Walters interviewed children with gender issues; and Jerry Springer let all hell break loose on the set when a family railed about a transsexual cousin. And documentaries around the dial have explained everything we ever wanted to know about sex. . . .
UK: Man accused of illegally using silicone on transgender patients
By DAVE FORSTER, The Virginian-Pilot
© August 16, 2007
Last updated: 4:13 PM
SUFFOLK - Police have arrested a man they say injected silicone into transgender patients at his home without a license to practice medicine.
A former client of Francis Rene White reported the situation to police, said Lt. D.J. George, a department spokeswoman. White, 36, has since been charged with two counts of practicing medicine without a license. He turned himself into police Wednesday.
Police have two former clients who say they went to White's home in the 300 block of S. Main St., and let him inject silicone into their face or breast area, George said. White charged them for his services, they said.
George said she did not know if either of the two known customers suffered any complications from their procedures.
The police believe White had other clients and would like to speak to them, George said. They are asked to call Det. Sgt. Robert Ross at (757) 514-7947.
Detectives believe White generally serviced transgender clients, but he may have practiced on other people as well. George said she did not know how much he charged. Police believe he also worked as a bartender.
S.F. Drag King Contest bends the rules of gender until they break
Thursday, August 16, 2007
The Indra, left, and Lu Read share master of ceremony duties at the 12th annual San Francisco Drag King Contest, which offers more performances this year. Chronicle photo by Chris Stewart
Colorado Springs: Inside/Out
From health services to a home away from home
by Jill Thomas
 |
| Cassie, 16, pictured playing foosball with Inside/Out facilitator Bryan Simms, is one of 300-plus clients. |
| Photo By Brienne Boortz |
"It was either change who I was, or leave," says Kory, now 20, in a quiet, even voice. He closes his eyes for a moment as if replaying the scene, then continues. "So I left."
Though he first came out as a lesbian, Kory now identifies himself as transsexual and has begun the process of becoming male. He takes hormone therapy in preparation for the operation he hopes will one day complete the process. And, while he's still legally female, his sensitive, dark eyes look out from the face of an attractive young man.
Kory had to leave, but it wasn't easy.
"Until I came out, my entire life revolved around my family and my church," he explains. "Now I don't think I'd be welcomed there."
Indeed, in virtually every city, but especially the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs, there are places where young people like Kory aren't welcomed. But two years ago, he discovered a place with an open door. That place was Inside/Out Youth Services.
The challenge
Ironically, Inside/Out fills the basement of a former church on Nevada Avenue (the same building that houses the Independent's offices). Though it's largely an underground space, it's colorful and comfortable. A circle of couches forms a giant conversation pit. Nearby, there are pool and foosball tables, a piano, a small library, computers, cable TV and a mini-fridge full of soft drinks. It could be mistaken for any church youth-group hangout if it weren't for the baskets of condoms, dental dams and safe-sex brochures placed on a table.
As teens gather outside the door, laughing and talking, the scent of popcorn wafts up the stairwell. A key jingles in the lock and Deborah Surat, the executive director, opens up to let them in.
"Hey, Deb," they greet her, with smiles and hugs, as they file in for an evening meeting.
The organization, founded in 1990, was originally created to address health issues among lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. Today, for the 300-plus young people who come here annually, it's a support network, a resource center, an educational forum, even a home away from home.
"We can't be everything they need," says Surat, "but if we can't provide it, we'll work to find someone in the community who can."
It's not an empty platitude. When a young person comes in the door for the first time, Inside/Out gives him or her a computerized assessment on major risk factors. If it reveals increased risks for depression, substance abuse, suicide or other issues, she connects the youth with a professional who can help.
On one table, there are free clothes and school supplies; on another, a sign-up sheet for the showing of a televised presidential debate, and volunteer forms for the upcoming Downtown Diversity Celebration.
"Deb is always asking for ways we can improve things," says Talia, a college student and young mother who comes to the center. "We all have a say."
One of center's most popular services, its food pantry, grew out of simple observation.
"At first we were only serving pizza on Fridays," says Surat. "But during the meetings on Wednesdays and Thursdays, I realized they were eating chips like it was their only meal of the day."
Now the kitchen shelves hold cereal boxes, trail mix, mac and cheese, tuna, peanut butter, applesauce and other foods that require little cooking.
"The kitchen is there for anyone who is hungry," says Surat. "They are welcome to take food with them or eat it here. No questions asked."
It's a policy that makes a difference to teens who aren't always comfortable using religious charities or those that collect data that might "out" them. Because approximately half the youth no longer live at home, and a quarter of those are homeless, according to Surat, it's an important service.
The future
But the pantry is not at the top of any lists when teens are asked why they come to Inside/Out. The things they mention are the intangibles. Like the way the center has given 17-year-old Shane the confidence to come out to his friends and family.
"I like the support and the topics that we talk about," Shane says. "They're real-life issues."
Cassie, a 16-year-old, found the center after her father reacted violently to her coming out.
"At Inside/Out I get support, I get comfort, I get good friends and people I can call when I need them ... Basically everything except a shower and a place to sleep."
Bryan Simms, one of the center's 12 adult facilitators, understands how they feel.
"I came from a conservative home," he says. "And I'm here because I wish there was a place like this when I was young. It's a safe place where they don't have to be ashamed of who they are, and they learn that someone cares about them."
Talia smiles a big, easy smile when asked what she has found here. She names her friends and her fiancé Kory at the top of her list.
"He's the best thing that ever happened to me," she says. "The time I've spent here has been some of the best in my life." 
Photo By Brienne Boortz
Kory has seen many changes in his life since he first came here two years ago, when he had nowhere else to go. With the encouragement of Inside/Out staff, he recently took the GED test and received the highest score the testing center has ever given. Last week he received an Inside/Out scholarship that will help him attend local college in the fall.
And, in addition to attending the center's groups himself, he now volunteers as a peer facilitator. He openly shares the most personal details of his life to help others.
"I want other kids to know that Inside/Out is a great place to go," he says, adding, "For the first time in my life, I found a place where I felt it was OK to be myself."
Ireland: Good news for wimps
It's probably a good thing that the weather has been so bad because it has saved me the embarrassment of having to show my scrawny white body on the beach. Irish men do not do beaches well not only because of the whiteness – we all look like a newly distempered gable wall – but also because we don't particularly go in for the Charles Atlas, body-building type look. Personally I reckon this is a good thing since there is nothing quite so disconcerting as an overtoned male body poured into one of those sleeveless tee-shirts which invariably have all the male paraphernalia (cigarettes, wallet etc.) tucked under one shoulder. Having said that it might be good occasionally to think that one was not a total wimp destined to have sand kicked in one's face at any available opportunity.
But it seems there is good news for us wimps. A survey reported in the Observer this week has found that over 90 per cent of females said they did not like the 'macho' look preferring their men to have female features which they reckoned made them more caring. We will leave aside the obvious comment that this is a contradiction since all the females I know with female features are far from caring in any shape, form or size and concentrate instead on the fact that it is reassuring that females want us to find our feminine side. All they need to do now is explain exactly what this means.
I presume it does not mean that we should start beautifying ourselves with various creams and potions. Not only would this be beyond the sartorial pale, but it would clearly impinge on the amounts of money left for the acquisition of female potions and creams. I have watched in steady horror over the years as the amount spent on creams has grown from double to treble figures while the actual jars of cream have grown smaller. There seems to be some inverse relationship between cream and cost; the dearer the cream the smaller the amount purchased. This is the marketing trick par excellence. In a nutshell if it is smaller it must be better. The key of course is the number of ingredients. The more expensive, the greater the list and the more extensive the ingenuity in getting this expanding list of anti-aging chemicals onto an ever-decreasing label size. Eventually I am convinced females of a certain age will pay extortionate amounts of money for nothing but a promise that if you have entered a particular shop scientific tests have proven that you will stop aging.
Having said that it appears that females do not want us to stop shaving just yet. Any kind of face fuzz was scorned upon so we will have to continue purchasing the female equivalent of the small cream jar, known as the multi-blade razor. The latest has four blades and vibrates like an electric toothbrush. It is an object of terror and one which I have not yet managed to wean myself on to. I'm up to two blades now and feel that I am just beginning to manage the number of cuts inflicted by these. The hospitals are not yet equipped to deal with a male population let loose with four blade shaving tackle. . . .
XY Doc
Miss International Queen
The cheeky sound of the "Mr Miss World" competition suggests that it's an enlightened, self-aware version of the Miss Universe pageants. But this is no tongue-in-cheek Priscilla, darlings - it's a cut-throat, superficial world in which stilettos and sticky tape are more important than camaraderie.
D.C. to Fire 3 Over Woman's Detention as a Man
Corrections Officers Ignored Inmate's Protests Over Mix-Up During Arrest, Jail Processing
By David Nakamura
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 16, 2007; B01
District officials plan to fire three corrections officers who failed to realize a woman was being held in the male detention unit at the D.C. jail last month even after she had been strip-searched and allowed to shower with male inmates, government sources said yesterday.
Virginia Grace Soto, 47, was arrested July 14 and thought to be a man despite her repeated protests otherwise, according to two internal reports by D.C. police and the Department of Corrections obtained by The Washington Post.
Although Soto came in contact with at least nine jail employees, only three are being terminated. Government sources wouldn't disclose their names yesterday, but one was said to be a supervisor.
The corrections officers "failed to comply [with] standard intake search policies as mandated," a 73 - page internal report by the Corrections Department says.
"We want to send a signal that this behavior will not be tolerated," said a high-ranking D.C. government official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the termination proceedings are underway. "They should have taken the right precautions to verify the sex of person. And she should have been treated with a lot more respect."
According to the reports, mistakes were made at several points in Soto's arrest and court processing, including by D.C. police officers and the U.S. Marshals Service. The only disciplinary action being taken now is against the corrections officers.
Soto was interviewed for the corrections report. The 105-page police report, dated Saturday, concludes that the error was not the result of misconduct by police. The report says that Soto "has not filed a complaint" about the mix-up and that "attempts to locate her have been unsuccessful."
Soto, a white Hispanic woman originally from the Dominican Republic, is 5-foot-3 and weighs 130 pounds. She has a "slight build," with brown hair and brown eyes, according to the corrections report, which describes S oto as "androgynous in nature." Soto has used aliases and has a history of misdemeanor and felony arrests in the District, New Jersey and Virginia, the report says.
The reports reveal that Soto was arrested twice since April and that both times officials classified her as a man.
The mix-up began April 28 when Soto was arrested on suspicion of prostitution. Although she told the two arresting officers she was a woman, she was ultimately booked as a man after being interviewed by Sgt. Tania Bell of the city's Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit.
Bell told investigators that Soto was belligerent and incomprehensible during the interview, part of which took place through an interpreter who spoke to Soto in Spanish, according to a report by the police department's internal affairs division. Bell ultimately classified Soto as a "transgendered male."
Soto was released on her own recognizance and failed to show up for a trial in that case. She was arrested again July 14 on drug-related charges. Although the offic ers, and hospital workers who examined her that day, thought her to be a woman, she was processed as a man by an unidentified cell block technician based on computer records related to her April arrest, according to the report by the corrections division.
Soto spent two weekend nights in a solitary holding cell in an area reserved for male suspects awaiting a court appearance July 16, when U.S. marshals took her to D.C. Superior Court. Soto told investigators that she informed the marshals she was not a man but was "mocked" and called "thing."
After her arraignment, Soto and 11 male prisoners were taken by the marshals to the men's receiving unit at the D.C. jail. Two officers who interviewed her during initial processing failed to follow proper procedures that should have detected the mix-up, according to the corrections report.
Soto was then strip-searched by two other jail officers who failed to notice she was a woman, in part because she had covered her genitals with her hand, the report said. The only thing unusual that the two officers reported spotting was "the bandage on the lower left side of her back."
"I didn't see nothing," one jail officer told investigators, "but I was still thinking male." . . .
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Singer's cousin in sex-op imbroglio
Deborah Gough
August 19, 2007
August 19, 2007
Stefanie Imbruglia: Fears new laws will make overseas travel for a sex-change operation unsafe.
Photo: Jacky Ghossein
A TRANSGENDER cousin of singer Natalie Imbruglia says new federal laws will force Australians seeking sex-change operations overseas to risk humiliating body cavity and strip searches.
Stefanie Imbruglia, first cousin of the actor turned pop star, said that under the new laws, which came into effect last month, she would have to be identified as a man on her passport, even though she had breasts, or she would have to travel on the lesser document of identity, which did not state sex.
Either way, it would attract unwelcome attention from immigration and customs authorities, who could demand the embarrassing searches.
"By asking me to travel on a document of identity, this government is asking me to put a spotlight on myself in a foreign country when it is totally unnecessary and makes me fear for my safety," said Ms Imbruglia, who lives in Sydney.
"The alternative is that I travel on a passport that says I am a man, when I am presenting as a woman with breasts. And on my return I will be forced to travel on a false passport and what if they were to do a body search and I am all swollen, with a vagina? Either way it is unacceptable."
Before July, a person seeking a gender reassignment operation overseas could apply for a limited validity passport that listed their intended sex on return. Making false or misleading statements carries a penalty of up to 10 years' imprisonment or a $110,000 fine under the Australian Passports Act.
Ms Imbruglia said she had hoped to have the $20,000 sex-change operation in Thailand. An estimated 200 to 400 Australians have sex-change operations in Thailand each year. . . .
Freeing Up Deborah
When Dr. Roy Berkowitz-Shelton decided to live as a woman, he gambled that his marriage and medical practice would survive the change. In the conclusion of our two-part series, Dr. Deborah Bershel emerges and confronts her new reality.
Part 1: A Family Doctor's Journey From Man to Woman | PART 2
At age 52, Deborah Bershel made her first trip to the mall. It lasted nine hours. It was July 2006, and there was barely a rack of clothes in the Burlington Mall that she didn't comb through. The next day she headed to the Natick Mall and logged another five hours shopping. She was making up for lost time. In each store, her approach was usually the same. She'd march up to a salesclerk and explain, "I'm a transsexual, so I'm new to this." Then she'd ask her particular question, whether it be which cut of jeans would cover the top of her panties or which type of fabrics wouldn't cling to her arms. "I have questions that no 50-year-old woman should have," she said.
It was behavior so uninhibited it would have been unthinkable in her previous life. As a husband, father, and family physician, Roy Berkowitz-Shelton was many things – compassionate, dutiful, funny. But no one would have called him uninhibited. For years, he had struggled to understand the feelings inside him that made him question whether he really was a man and made him attracted to the clothes that went along with being a woman. Yet that struggle had been almost entirely internal.
A month before the maiden visit to the mall, he had gone public. He told his patients and colleagues what his family had known for some months: that he was a woman and would soon transition to live life that way. He stressed his hope that even after Roy Berkowitz-Shelton, MD, was gone, replaced by Deborah Bershel, MD, his patients, colleagues, and family would naturally become hers. Whether that would actually happen was anybody's guess.
On June 29, 2006, after more than a year and a half of taking female hormones, Roy Berkowitz-Shelton lay on an operating table while a Boston University School of Medicine plastic surgeon smoothed down his forehead, made his nose smaller and more upturned, lifted his brow and upper lip, softened his jaw line, brought his hairline forward, and performed what's called a "tracheal shave," removing the lump on the throat that is so identified with being male that it's named after the original one. Seven and a half hours later, bruised and drained, Deborah Bershel emerged.
She quickly found that more than her appearance had changed. As a man, Roy cared little about clothes, and a trip to the mall held all the appeal of a dental cleaning. As a woman, Deborah was surprised to learn that she genuinely enjoyed shopping. Of course, not everything had changed. She was still compassionate and well informed. And frugal. She blanched at the price tags on the designer outfits she saw at Macy's and ended up making many of her purchases at TJ Maxx. For one brown top, she splurged and plunked down $50, but that was an aberration. More common was her pattern of acquisitions at Payless: nine pairs of shoes for a total of $85.
In the weeks after surgery, everything was building toward her July 24 return to Davis Square Family Practice, the Somerville medical office she had run as Roy for nearly 18 years. Alison, who had married Roy a quarter-century earlier and served as the practice's office manager, had helped care for Deborah in their Newton home during the week immediately following her surgery. But the future of their marriage, like so much else, was uncertain. However supportive she may have been, Alison had made it clear there was a reason she had married a man. Deborah had agreed to move back into the Brighton apartment where Roy had lived during the months leading up to the transition and stay there until their daughter left for college.
The Saturday before her return to the office, Deborah spent hours organizing all her new clothing, by color. It was a move that Roy, who had been infamous for his clutter, would have resisted. It felt good to be packing up all of Roy's clothes, a ho-hum collection of off-the-rack suits, button-down shirts, and khakis. It was only when she came to a favorite colorful tie that she lingered. Roy had taken pride in his many vibrant ties, which were especially popular with his pediatric patients. Holding the tie, she felt a small pang of sadness, the same pang she'd felt at the supermarket when she spotted a young father roughhousing with his son on his shoulders. That scene, that tie, were part of the past now. There was a whole new life to be lived. . . .
Fa'afafine definition still shaky
 Tafi Toleafoa ( ) |
(Published: August 19, 2007)
FA'AFAFINE: (pronounced fah-ah-fuh-fee-nay) means "like a woman" in Samoan, and describes a third gender, with characteristics both male and female.
There's disagreement among anthropologists about the origins of fa'afafine, but there's evidence of their presence in Samoa over at least the last century, though some anthropologists believe they were part of Samoan culture for much longer. Many other Pacific island cultures have similar words for a third-gender person born male but seen as female.
Fa'afafine are generally accepted in Samoa, but their social position has become more complicated with the introduction of Christianity and continuing western influence on the islands.
Fa'afafine aren't like American transgender people. They don't identify themselves as women in men's bodies. They are identified as children by mothers or other females close to their family, a decision influenced by their behavior, and possibly by a lack of girls in a family to do "women's work." Some take on western-sounding female nicknames.
Because they aren't likely to have children of their own, fa'afafine often excel professionally and many become teachers. They commonly live with their extended family and care for their aging parents. They are seen as excellent housekeepers and babysitters.
Sexuality for fa'afafine is complicated. Many see themselves as women and enter into clandestine, short-term relationships with men who see themselves as straight. Some fa'afafine, motivated by social pressure and the wish for children, leave their feminine identity behind and marry women, but many others don't. Occasionally they live openly with male partners.
Depending on where they live and the expectations of their family, they express their gender differently. In cities, some fa'afafine live more openly, dressing flamboyantly, performing in American-style drag shows, having public relationships. In more remote places, and in Christian families, fa'afafine are generally expected to be more discreet, maintaining at least a public image of celibacy.
Some among the most recent generation of fa'afafine, which has been most influenced by Western culture, have begun experimenting with physically changing their sex, taking hormones obtained from doctors or on the black market, and in rare cases, traveling to the U.S. or Asia for gender reassignment surgery.
Sources: Assistant Professor Ann Jache, University of Alaska Anchorage; "Paradise Lost? Social Change and Fa'afafine in Samoa," by Dr. Johanna Schmidt; "Male Transvestism and Cultural Change in Samoa," by Jeannette Mageo; Tafi Toleafoa.
Friday, August 17, 2007
New Zealand: Gender inquiry loses plot
The signs are not hopeful for the country's first major inquiry into the rights of "transgender" New Zealanders, writes JOANNE PROCTOR.
In March, the Human Rights Commission released a summary of submissions from its "transgender" inquiry.
The final report is due in September. But already it is looking like a case of good intentions, discredited theories and a lost plot.
The commission's intentions seem obvious enough, the theories less so. Many pre-date the 1960s. Some contain echoes of feminist gender politics from that time. All are rooted in behaviourism. Because neurobiology has moved on, they should be past their use-by date. But they are proving hard to kill.
Take the "tabula rasa" theory, for example. According to it, a newborn baby's brain is a complete blank. It has the capacity to absorb and retain information. It has the potential to become sentient, but is unencumbered by those things when it emerges into the world.
The theory had pretty much disappeared by the 1990s. Before that, many experts regarded it as the psychological equivalent of a Newtonian law.
The expert who invented "gender identity" believed in the tabula rasa theory. His name was John Money. He defined gender identity as the "private experience of gender role". Then he defined gender role as the "public expression of gender identity".
Essentially Money's concept can be reduced to a little formula: A + C = D, where A is anatomical correctness, C is gender role conditioning and D is gender identity.
It works like this: first, you have a baby that is a tabula rasa. If he has a willie, then he is anatomically correct. You dress him in blue and call him Colin: that is gender role conditioning. After a while, he learns that people with willies and names like Colin are males. Then he realises he is male, too. Now he has a gender identity.
If the baby has not got a willie, you use pink instead of blue. You put suffixes like "ette" or "a" on the end of names like Colin. You know the rest.
Money believed that humans would not know if they were Arthur or Martha without gender-role conditioning. And Arthur could grow up believing that he actually was Martha if the conditioning was inappropriate. That is called "gender-identity disorder" and transsexuals are commonly accused of having it.
By 1975, the formula had assumed the status of a Newtonian law, and the concept of gender identity had evolved into a sacred cow. Actually it is an idee recue: it exists because people think it does. For all anyone knows, it is the biggest red herring that has been dragged past any inquiry in the last hundred years.
While Money was inventing theories, other experts were busy having arguments with each other. One was over what transsexuals should be called. Some experts believed that anyone who thought it was possible to change sex was seriously deluded. They thought that terms like transsexual and sex reassignment were reinforcing the delusion. Others argued that post-op male-to-female transsexuals were just castrated males who were changing gender roles.
The arguments lasted several years and ended with a decision to use the term transgender to define transsexuals. Transgender is shorthand for "transiting gender roles". Before the 1980s, the word had allowed some distinction between transsexualism and the gender-role transgressive behaviours such as transvestism. . . .
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